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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Bam! Quality increase!
I love quality, it's one thing I'm absolutely obsessed with. Be it the presentation of this blog, how the blog is written or even the photos within this blog, I'm always after ways to make everything (for a lack of a better word) good. I like... good.
The same applies to my videos. I've been creating videos consistently for a year now. If you watch my first ever review that was part of a consistent release pattern, Super Strike Eagle for the SNES and compare it to something like my latest video, WRC Arcade of the PSone, you'll (hopefully) see how much better I've got at making them. This is because every time I created a video and watched it back, I picked out a few things that needed improving. This happened every time I created a video, and along with critique from fellow viewers, my videos have evolved into what they are today. The thing is though, that is still happening. With every release, I change something. Even if it's small.

The last major 'upgrade' was overhauling my lighting setup, which was in December. Since then, the thing that's been bothering me the most is the audio quality of the voice recordings. The voice recordings are a lot more prominent than they use to be, so it was time to upgrade. Before, I was using my cheap add-on microphone that attached to my DSLR. That does the job okay, but honestly I wouldn't mind replacing that too. An audio only microphone takes priority though, so last week I bought a Blue Yeti.

After extensive research, the Yeti came out on top. Blue have always been known for their quality microphones, but this one stands out as it's quite cheap (at about $150). This microphone is perfect for my needs as it has a built in analogue to digital converter (plugging in by a single USB port) and a headphone port so you can monitor your recording in real time (otherwise known as zero-latency monitoring).

I've played around with it a bit since it arrived today, and I'm very happy with it so far. It will be used as soon as my next video.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Gumtree has stricken my wallet and I again, as last week I actually managed to find some Mega Drive games that weren't more expensive than a six pack of booze.
In fact, I've only managed to add a couple of MD games to my collection since I picked up an actual Mega Drive months and months ago. I don't know why they're so hard to find, but when I do come across them the prices aren't right.
The other week I found a copy of PGA Tour Golf II in an op-shop for $4 boxed, and bought it just because I wanted something else to play on the MD. Do I like golf games? Absolutely not. I was just getting desperate.
I should of held my breath a little bit longer though as only a few days later I was browsing Gumtree, and came across this chap selling a whole bunch of MD games for $5 each. Perfect.
I selected the four I wanted out of his list, but I got chatting to him over SMS. Out of chance I asked him if he was also selling Road Rash (a game I've been after for a while on the MD) and he said he had a copy. He wasn't planning on selling it originally but would sell it to me for $5 regardless. Awesome.
All the games worked first try, so expect a lot of MD reviews in the coming months. It's a fantastic console that I haven't given much loving yet, but that's about to change.

I have also been out and about buying other games too quite a bit, but haven't been posting about them. I've been buying too many, and it would just be too much to post about. Over that, I wouldn't consider it particularly enthralling reading, but none the less here are some games I've picked up just over the last two days.

The only game I bought out of that lot yesterday was Jungle Strike on the... you guessed it, the Mega Drive! "The sequel to Desert Strike".

Out of nowhere my MD collection is booming, which is by all means a fantastic thing. That cost nearly $8, because I'm super suave and saved myself seventy whole cents. How did I do that? Well, I just said: It was my super suaveness.

I went into a local pawn store which, let's just say, I'm not that much a fan of. Why do I keep going back? Well, curiosity I guess. I have had some hits previously, but they're far apart. The shop is on a road I travel regularly you see, so sometimes I just can't resist the urge to check it out. The shop has a great selection, but everything is so damn overpriced. The stock doesn't seem to move either, every now and again I pick up something reasonably priced but otherwise the stock there always stays the same.

Anyway, this is one of those classy joints that has a $10 Eftpos minimum. I'm not a cash guy at heart, so when I come across that it makes my cringe. Sure I can see it being feasible if it's a small store, but this place is huge. The only reason they would have an Eftpos minimum is because they want you to spend more money, that's plain and clear. Anyway (again), I'm getting off track. I only had $7 and 30 cents on me in cash, and there was absolutely nothing else in that store which was at a price I was comfortable with paying ($130 N64's anyone?). Since I know the gaming stock in there isn't moving that much anyway, I thought they would have no problem marking a game down a measly seventy cents.
Well, turns out they did, so I had to put on the best poor student face that I could as to not buy something else and bring the transaction over $10. Cheap bastards.
So yeah, my opinion of that places lowers every time I go there. Why the hell do I go there though? Who knows, collectors urge I guess.

Today I had a bit more luck and checked out a few places near to my college which I hadn't been to before.

First off, I went to the local friendly Cash Converters and picked up Top Spin on the Xbox and Wave Race on the N64 for $5 each. Is $5 too much to pay for an Xbox game in this day and age? You'll have to read this post to find out. ;)

Wave Race is a game that's interested me for a while, so I was happy to find that for $5.

Just down the road were both a Salvo's and a Good Sammy's right next to each other, which was cool because they were both larger format stores. The Salvo's was mostly full of furniture and clothes though, no games, but I had a bit more luck in the Good Sammy's next door.

Again, mostly larger items but I came across those three PSone games you see in the photo for $4 each. You might be squinting and wondering what Station 7 is. I was too, and strangely couldn't find anything about it on my phone at the time so I bought it out of pure curiosity. Turns out it's a demo disk.

I paid actual real life money for a demo disk. Oh well.

There really isn't much of note to write about the other two games apart from the fact that A Bugs Life has no scratches on it whatsoever. I've never seen that on a pre-owned kids game before, and will likely never again.

Friday, May 23, 2014

I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but I'm a huge fan of rally games. I have a few more reviews based around rally games planned for the coming months, but today we start off with WRC Arcade on the PSone.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Yes, you read that right! Labels! Not the kind you see to your left either which helpfully let you pursue all this blogs posts by category either. No, this post is about actual labels. Insane, I know.
Last month you may remember that I wrote about general updates to my games room. In that, you can see how I've labelled the switchboards with writeable tape. This was functional since guessing what each button responds too is about as fun as poking your eyeballs with ballpoint pens, but it wasn't the best looker. No matter how neat I tried to write, it looked mediocre at best.

I'd been meaning to purchase an electronic labeller for a while, but the general price has been putting me off. Usually they're about $50, which isn't a whole lot of money, but more than what I want to invest in such an item. I was in my friendly neighbourhood Coles supermarket the other day (which is coming a supermarket less and less, it now even has a clothes section) while looking for Blu-Tac of all things, and I came across a Dymo labeller for $25. Half price! Ohhh yeah. I never found the Blu-tac, but I went straight to town in re-labelling my switching system.

Fresh as fudgggeee. Look how professional it looks!
I realise this post might be a bit pointless, but I needed to emphasise the fact how good a simple change can look.